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Mixed Bank

Sail Date:
August 2010

Destination:
Baltic Sea

Embarkation:
Dover

The cruise started out great. One week before the cruise, NCL called and offered to upgrade us to a mini-suite from a outside cabin with balcony for a minimal charge. It was an easy decision since we increased floor space by 50%. Embarkment was easy.

The room we had was beautiful. The largest we have ever had and nicely accommodated. We had a wonderful cabin stewart, Michael When we sailed from Dover, you could hear a whistling coming from the outside balcony door. We temporarily fixed with a towel. It was reported to cabin stewart and fixed the next day by carpenter putting in weatherstripping. A few days into cruise, the paint and primer from the balcony of our neighbor's cabin fell onto our balcony in middle of the night. Hopefully this was corrected once shipped docked in Dover. Overall--ship is in need of updating--worn carpentry and fading paint.

Destinations were great. We did private tours or walked on our own in all locations except Stockholm. There we More
used an NCL excursion and was sorely disappointed since it failed to come close to matching the description. Including being short on time. It confirmed our decision to arrange our own tours as the best approach.

Tallin is a beautiful stop and very easy to do without a planned tour. Same is true for Copenhagen and Helsinki. St. Petersburg and Berlin you need an arranged tour. Many people have private tours. Our tour in Berlin was higher price than NCL, but St. Petersburg arrangements lower cost. Both times we had great tour guides. Stockholm is where boat doesn't dock and you tender. An hour trip into stockholm. We did note that many cruise ships appear to anchor closer to stockholm to avoid the one hour trip. No such option for the Berlin stop. Since all cruise ships dock at Warnemunde and there is a 2-3 hour ride to Berlin

Food on Board was mediocre compared to other cruise lines. There was a sameness each day. As others have noted, the buffet is a zoo--too small an area for the ship. Where possible, we had breakfast at Seven Seas The outdoor cafe (next to the inside buffet) is only place available for food between 2.30 & 5 pm. Ship is not flexible. On day it poured rain (Copenhagen)--rather than open indoor buffet, ship made all passengers go out in rain to get food. Most passengers came back to ship early because of rain. No one was happy to go back out in rain to have lunch. We did not use any of the specialty dinner sites. We also discovered late in cruise, that if you ask for something not on the menu (like a baked potato)--you could get one. This is a good tip to know from the beginning of the cruise.

Back to our primary theme. We are very glad we took the trip and enjoyed all of the destinations (particularly Tallin, St. Petersburg and Berlin). However, in future we will look at other cruise lines, unless NCL is offering only trip that meets our destination and timing needs.

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Cabin review: MB

Mini-suite was very nice. Good balcony.
Only issues--other than maintenance-- was location under observation lounge and fact that they had a band playing until midnight and we heard the "bass" in our room. Not what we expected.

Port and Shore Excursions

You need to arrange a tour to properly see City. Our tour was tailored to meet our requests, including seeing city from a Jewish perspective. We had a great tour guide, an American ex-patriate with 12 years in Germany. At the Olympic Stadium, you also need to see the Landsmark--next door--build specifically to Hitler's specifications. It was one of the most eerie building we have ever seen. He held SS graduation ceremonies here. Bradenburg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie, the new Government Buildings and Train station are also a must.

Hard to rate this stop, since it poured rain all day. Nice City from what we saw, including Royal Palace, the Royal Stables and Danish Jewish Museum. Walking is very easy in town--I don't think a formal tour is required. A great place to buy amber

You need a tour to properly see city. Also tours get priority into getting into Hermitage and Winter & Summer Palaces. In addition to those sites--a trip on the subway(very safe) is a must. The stations look like palaces (built as the people palaces) Pushkin/Peterhof also a beautiful stop-- For those adventuresome and willing to have an expensive lunch, we'd recommend Elena Shitkova--a purported favorite of Putin. Traditional Russian dress and food. Over 100 different vodkas. I was tempted to have the "bear" for lunch, but chose a much a pedestrian choice.

Because of the poor NCL tour--we spent a long time waiting in line at VASSA and was shorted time at the end. This event impacted the day. Vassa Museum is very nice if you have the right time to view it properly. The 20 minutes we were given was not enough. We didn't get to the Nobel Museum--which was partially our fault. We did see the Palace and the changing of the guide--which was nice. Walking along the pedestrian street was also nice. Stockholm is the most expensive city we visited.